10 Months!

Yet another month as quickly passed. Anna is growing up so fast and we've seen many changes in our little bug. It's hard to believe she is already 10 months old.

Anna has been waving for some time but now she will do it without being prompted first. I love it when babies just open and close their hand to wave and it's fun that she is doing that too. 

Early on in the month I woke to find Anna standing up in her crib. That was the first time she'd gotten herself to the sitting position from laying down to be able to pull herself up. Now she does it all the time.

It was less than a week from doing that to when Anna started crawling. This girl is now all over the place. She still likes standing up but doesn't stay there long because she wants to crawl over to something else and pull up onto that. It made this photo shoot much more difficult than last month!

We did manage to get a few pictures of her standing though. We did finally have to get a gate for the stairs since she learned how to climb the first step. I saw her playing by the stairs one day and standing next to them. I told Kevin...I think she's going to try climbing in the next week. Sure enough, about one week later she was making her way up the first step to grab something on the third step. 

Sleep has been somewhat of a challenge this last month. Anna had been slowly cutting out her third nap of the day and the transition hasn't exactly been easy. It's pretty much a thing of the past now and her other naps in the day have gotten better. Anna still usually wakes once at night but over this next month we're going to try and get her away from wanting to nurse since we feel it is more habit than anything. She slept 11 hours straight last night which was amazing for me. We will be traveling this week so we may not worry about it too much until after we get back. Traveling is hard enough on a baby...

Another thing that started up in the last couple weeks is growling. She learned how to growl one day and now does it whenever she is feeling restrained. It is sort of cute except when you are trying to get her diaper on and you just want her to cooperate. 

We were a little exasperated by the end of this session. Anna wanted to explore everything around, didn't want to smile at the camera, and wanted to crawl more than she wanted to take her picture. It seemed like a good time to throw in a collage of some outtakes. 

I can't remember if I mentioned before about how Anna loves dogs and cats. She gets so excited whenever she sees the doggies. Although Maddie, the Husky my in-laws have, is not my favorite, Anna feels very differently. She. Loves. This. Dog. Maddie had eaten the antennas off of this caterpillar that Anna loves so while I had another one on order I pulled out this little stuffed dog. Well the dog looks like Maddie and now that is her favorite...figures.

Those 9 month photos

Before posting on Anna being 10 months I thought I'd put up some photos from the professional pictures we had taken of Anna at 9 months. There were so many pictures to chose from and I would love to just post them all but I don't think blogger allows that many pictures in one post. Plus, while I could look at photos of her all day I realize that people have other things to do.

It was really hard to pick and I'm doing it quickly since I'm doing laundry and trying to pack for another wedding we leave for in a couple days. 

I decided on a different photographer for this photo shoot. While we got some wonderful photos at her 6 month session I was wanting something different. I stumbled across the amazing Elena Sanchez with Glass Lantern Photography and I am so incredibly happy!

It's always a struggle trying to decide whether to spend the money for professional pictures. Getting them taken costs money but they change so fast that you want to capture those moments. Our compromise is finding photographers that are in the process of growing their business so the prices are much more reasonable. 

We used Sears for Anna's newborn pictures...got a couple decent shots...bought the CD with no prints and we paid the same or more as every other professional session we've had since (and that was with some coupons too). I only wish I'd known this before Anna was born!

I always just get the CD with the digital prints and then order what I want when I want (I like using Unitprints.com for those I want to frame) and pay a fraction of the price for high quality prints!

I finally got a picture with her adorable ruffled diaper cover. Don't you just love those rolls?

Elena was so easy to work with and we had so much fun taking these pictures.

This session was fun too because Anna really enjoyed standing and wasn't really crawling and trying to get away.

Anna loves sitting on Kevin's shoulders so she made sure to get a few of her up there.

Love these pictures and I can't wait to do Anna's 1 year pictures. Now all I have to do is try and decide which prints to order...

 

Fun at the Park

Last weekend was gorgeous and we took advantage of the perfect day by heading to the park.

Checking out Grandma's jewelry

 First stop was the duck pond to feed the ducks and geese. Hailie, Seth, and Kevin ran around harassing the birds and throwing them bread and Anna enjoyed watching from the shade.

Dressed for the Stanford game that night (which they won by the way).

Anna also enjoyed hanging out in one of her favorite places...Daddy's shoulders.

After feeding the ducks we headed over to the playground to wait for the train to get back to the station. Seth has always loved the train and it's nice that he still enjoys it after all these years.  

We had such a nice afternoon at the park...hopefully the nice weather continues and we can head back soon.

 

Picture Catch Up

Just yesterday I got the digital copy of the pictures from Anna's 9 month session. I then realized I never really posted pictures from Anna's 6 month session. Thought I'd post a few favorites before moving on to more recent pictures.

It was a horribly hot day out back in June. We'd been rained out twice and we were grateful for a dry day but it was fairly miserable. 

Anna did pretty well in the beginning and the photographer managed to get some pretty good photos.

By the time we got to the last outfit Anna was pretty hot. I was wanting to get a cute picture of her on her belly so you could see the adorable ruffled diaper cover but she was simply not going to have that. 

She got upset and we had to pick her up. Luckily it led to one of my favorite group pictures from the day. 

It's hard to believe that almost 4 months have passed since we had these taken! Thank you JV Photography for helping us make these memories.

Fun Photos

My cousin, Nate, who happens to be incredibly talented with the camera just sent me a few pictures of Anna from our trip to Wisconsin. I had no choice but to share :)

These were taken when we all went to Orange Leaf on our last night there.

Just being cute.

Nate had a fairly new lens that he was using that day that he said was one of his favorites right now. I absolutely LOVE this last picture. Makes me wish I had a better camera and was more talented behind it.

 

Crawling

It's been almost 2 weeks since this officially happened but Anna is crawling! The army crawl is pretty much a thing of the past (usually only if she's wearing a dress). She's improved every single day and she is truly all over the place. Thought I'd include a video this time.

Other than crawling other exciting things have happened for us. Kevin interviewed and was offered a job in Kansas! He started last week as Senior Analytical Chemist with Sigma Aldrich Fine Chemicals (SAFC) in Lenexa, Kansas. We are beyond excited that we will be staying in the area. Kevin is enjoying being back to work and seems to like it there so far. 

For right now we are still living in Topeka with Kevin's parents (thank you guys sooooo much) and Kevin is commuting. We plan to work with the housing assistance provided by the company and hopefully we'll be able to buy something rather than renting. It's been a crazy year but we feel everything has worked out the way it is supposed to and we are where we belong. Thank you everyone for all your well wishes!

Fun in Wisconsin

I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked over the rest of our weekend with family but I wanted to include some to wrap up our Labor Day trip.

Once the wedding and all the events surrounding it were over we finally had some time to hang out with family. I mentioned in the last post that us asking to stay at Uncle Kent and Aunt Deb's house turned into a family reunion. Besides my Mom and Dad, Hailie and Seth, and my cousins Nate and Molly (who live in Wisconsin as well), we had Uncle Marion and Aunt Betty from Pennsylvania.

Enjoying some pool time

 It was great that everyone could make it and it was wonderful getting to visit and catch up with everyone without the craziness of Molly's wedding from last summer which is when we were all together last. We lucked out weather wise and it was a bit warmer than usual for that time of year and we were able to take advantage of the pool. 

We thought the water might be a bit chilly for Anna but she got in two separate times and seemed to enjoy herself!

Daddy and Anna

 Like I said...I didn't take many pictures of all the family there but I did manage to get a few with Uncle Kent and Anna. It was funny....usually Anna is not much of a cuddle bug but she was quite content chillin' with Uncle Kent

 

"Just getting my back scratched...no big thing."

 Nate and Molly looked into this new trampoline park that opened not far from the house. Nate, Molly, her husband Mike, Kevin, me, Hailie and Seth were all excited to check it out. We paid for an hour of jumping and before we started we were worried if that would be enough time. After about 5 minutes of going nuts we realized that an hour was going to be plenty.


Luckily they had this cool foam pit you could jump into but it required waiting in line. The wait was fairly short most of the time but it was just long enough for you to get a little rest in.

Nate put together this collage from photos he took with his phone and I thought I'd include it. We had so much fun and it was most definitely a good workout! We were pretty soaked in sweat by the time we were finished!

It would have been nice to have a little more time with everyone but we had to get back to Kansas. We were so glad it worked out for everyone to get together and we look forward to the next Koch family reunion.

A Big Fat Greek Wedding

Last weekend was the wedding of our friend Dennis from Stanford and his fiance Rachel. The wedding was in Wisconsin so we made the drive up. It was also the same weekend as this Harley-Davidson convention that is held their every 5 years. Hotel rooms were scare and very expensive as a result but luckily for us my Aunt and Uncle live in the area so we were able to crash with them. It turned into a family reunion with my parents there so we had childcare which was amazing!

Dennis' family came here from Greece in the early 70's and Milwaukee has a pretty good sized Greek community. This meant a Greek Wedding!

Greek Orthodox Church

 Kevin was an usher for this wedding and he made a mighty fine one :)

Looking studly outside the church

 Having never been to a Greek wedding before (and most likely never will again) I opted to leave Anna at my Aunt and Uncle's for the ceremony. I was glad I did too...she is so busy that I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the ceremony as much.

They had a program explaining everything and it was a fun and interesting service. Lot's of cool traditions that we'd never had the opportunity to experience before. Rachel looked absolutely stunning and Dennis very handsome.

There was a break in between the ceremony and reception so I headed back to the house to get Anna. My Mom drove us back into Milwaukee where the reception was being held at the Wisconsin Club and waited in the car while we were showing Anna off for an hour or so. 

Stanford folks

We'd planned for her to stay a little longer but she was tired and all the people and noise seemed a little overwhelming for her. We figured she'd be happier playing with everyone back at the house so my Mom took her back. 

It would have been fun to dance with her but there is always Brian and Moria's wedding coming up!

Daddy's Girl

 We were seated at the "Stanford" table which was awesome. It was so fun catching up with everyone. Kevin and Daryl spend much of the evening 'arguing' over who was head usher. I had an awesome video of these two but for some reason I can't load it...it I get it to work later I'll add it.

Handsome Ushers

 I stole this picture off of facebook. I thought it was a nice picture of most of the guys. Dennis didn't get in it but we'll cut him some slack since he was kind of getting married that day. James didn't get in it either but she's Australian so we'll let that be his excuse.

Daryl, Matt, Josh, Jeff, Kevin, Chris

 The wedding reception was so much fun. There was lots of Greek dancing and Kevin and I participated as much as we could. One of the groomsman took the time to show me the dance and and by the end I was really starting to get the hang of it. We both love how much tradition the Greek's have and it made for a very fun wedding :) (This is were another video of some Greek dancing would have gone but since the first didn't work I'm not going to bother trying)

The next morning we made an appearance at the hotel for breakfast to see the Bride, Groom, and our Stanford friends one final time. Anna did better with just the small group in a low key setting. 

The Aussie getting to know Anna

 We're so happy for our friends as they begin this new chapter in their lives. Congrats Rachel and Dennis! We're also excited that they are living near Chicago...driving distance!